


you and me got a whole lot of history

by reinacadeea



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mentions of derogatory language/behaviour, Nothing explicit, general spoilers of current and future storylines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 06:25:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5237813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reinacadeea/pseuds/reinacadeea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robert learns exactly how bad things were in prison for Aaron</p>
            </blockquote>





	you and me got a whole lot of history

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt by overlyinvestedinfictionalpeople. I hope I've done it justice.
> 
> I suffered a slightly annoying brain injury that's kept me on sick leave for almost a month. Today is the first day that I've written in that long. So this is a test and I'm glad I passed it.
> 
> Enjoy
> 
> (This is the third time I've tried posting this damn thing. I hope it works. To those who gave me kudos on the other one, thank you. You won't be forgotten)

-

When he drives by the scrap yard early Monday morning, he can see Aaron's car already there. Ten hours later, it's still there when he returns.

A familiar rush of worry flushes through him, but it's not his problem. Aaron doesn't want him to care.

After the third day of the same sight greeting him in the early mornings, he agrees to meet Vic for lunch in the cafÃ© the next day. He makes small talk, waits for her to gossip about what Adam's doing that day. She doesn't and he won't stand the indignity of texting Adam himself.

Instead, he watches over her shoulder as Aaron lunges at his father outside the cafÃ© and immediately starts into action, pulling at Aaron's jumper until they're separated.

"Let off!" Aaron sputters at him, but Robert pushes him further away, confident that Cain makes sure Gordon won't reciprocate.

"Hey, don't be stupid," Robert says and pushes them out of the way of spectators.

No one needs to see Aaron stubbornly wiping at his eyes, too angry to hold it all in. Robert doesn't say anything, letting Aaron work through his anger and hurt in his own time. Whatever words he wants to say or whatever comfort he wants to show Aaron - it won't be welcomed. It's better he shows solidarity, that he's always on Aaron's side in this.

He stuffs his hands in his pockets because it's chilly outside and he's just come from meetings he doesn't want to go to in clothes that still smells like Home Farm. He wants to stare at Aaron until he looks up and shows him some genuine... something. He wants Aaron to not hate him.

What he sees worries him instead. It's familiar and worries him just as much now as it did then.

"Aaron-" he begins but Aaron's cuts him off.

"Leave me alone, yeah?"

Robert can only watch him walk off.

-

He thinks about pulling Chas aside. Rethinks.

Paddy? He's too busy playing away from home and Robert finds it amusing as much as he wants to march up to Rhona and tell her what a hypocrite her husband is.

Cain is caught between a rock (Chas) and a hard (Debbie) place. He's also Cain.

Adam had a baby that wasn't his and as usual doesn't care two shites what happens to the man he calls his best mate.

The rest of the Dingles are a mess and didn't much care for Aaron anyway.

Robert is all Aaron's got.

-

They're both outsiders in the village, stuck between plenty of drama and unwittingly being the catalyst for the rest.

All those people claiming to love Aaron and the only one who actually does freely and without wanting something in return is Robert.

"Huh," he remarks at his mirror image and wonders when he stopped being selfish about Aaron. He got so many things from Aaron without asking for it, let it creep under his skin until he couldn't live without it, and ripped it all away because he didn't understand.

He does now.

He buttons up his shirt over his heart, bruised and scarred, and heads downstairs.

"You ready?" Vic asks with a genuine smile.

He nods and shuffles out behind Finn, Pete and his baby sister.

They drive to Hotten in a taxi, awkward silence that Vic and Finn tries to fill. It goes about as well as one would expect.

Pete always struck Robert as a bit dull, the dull Barton. But he plays a good pub game and any lad with any sense for winning and scamming a pair of uni lads out of their drinks money is good enough for Robert tonight.

They stumble upon Adam and Aaron in the third pub. Entirely by accident of course.

Aaron looks at ease. It's nice.

When Aaron gets them a round, Robert doesn't think much on it, only smiles when Aaron sits it in front of him and takes a sip. It hits his tastebuds and he looks up at Aaron in surprise. It's the local one he likes. He remembers vaguely describing he liked it many moons ago when things were less bad.

Aaron nods just a little, acknowledging that Robert knows. It's a peace offering and Robert takes it, feeling something inside him unfurl just a little.

They drift closer together during the night, not going out of their way to be away from each other and they laugh at Finn being awkward and the surprising moment when Pete isn't a dumb brick that Robert has always known Aaron thinks he is.

So he watches when Aaron goes off to the loo and someone grabs his arm forcibly. Aaron stills and cowers slightly when the man holding his arms tells him something. Aaron goes with him.

"I'll be back in a second," Robert tells Vic and she gives him a languid slow smile.

The men's loos are partially open, not perpetually closed like the ladies and he peers inside, seeing Aaron pushed into the corner, the man towering over him threateningly.

"You think you get to go free? You're not free, cos you're a gay boy, a little gay boy. I'm going to make you cry like a girl. That's what you are inside, innit? You can't hide from me," the man hisses but Robert can hear every single word.

Push him off, Robert silently pleads Aaron, but Aaron is paralysed.

Robert takes a deep breath and plunges inside, all play-acting drunk, stumbling over his own legs and into the man having a go at Aaron. "Sorry, mate," he slurrs and gives them both a dumb smile.

The bloke's let go of Aaron and gives Robert a shove back before leaving, one final sneer in Aaron's direction.

Robert stands up, suddenly perfectly sober, and watches Aaron curl inwards. "Aaron?" he asks tentatively and reaches out, wanting to help.

Aaron curls away from him, but Robert grabs his hand softly and pulls him into a hug. Aaron is taut against him, curled like a spring, but Robert doesn't push him or demand anything and Aaron allows the hug in the end.

-

He taps Finn's shoulder at the bar and watches him startle in surprise.

"I'm taking Aaron home," Robert says. "He isn't feeling well."

Finn gives him a suspicious look. "I feel like I should be obligated to say something here."

"Think what you like," Robert tells him.

Finn blushes.

Robert finds Aaron where he left him, in the back of a taxi, arms crossed, posture closed, and tells the driver to take them to Emmerdale.

The drive is silent until the village looms and Robert suddenly doesn't know where to take them.

"Pub," Aaron says.

Once many moons ago, they sat in a kitchen with a cuppa and Aaron worried about a surgery that turned out well. This time they're in the silent pub, a bit of light coming from the bar. It's enough to sink the edges of Aaron's face into shadow and darkening his eyes even further.

"I'm sorry I didn't get you out sooner," Robert says, breaking their silence.

"I've had worse than tonight," Aaron says gruffly.

"I didn't mean tonight, but I should have kicked his head in," Robert says and he means it. He wanted to.

"He would have bashed in yours, might have rattled something straight up there."

Robert laughs and Aaron looks at him startled. "I would probably have deserved it."

"No, you wouldn't have," Aaron says, surprising them both.

The silence stretches on.

"I'm not going to be scared if you tell me what's in your head," Robert says. "I see your tells, the working, the lashing out... I'm not scared by it. I want to know."

Aaron looks at his hands and Robert sees them twitching. "You're most of it."

"I know," Robert whispers.

The first night, Aaron tells him haltingly, he was beaten black and blue where no one could see. The second and third night, the bruises had bruises.

"They ran an article, saying I was your gay lover with pictures and all," Aaron says. "It got worse."

Aaron tells him of the nights, how depression crippled him and he spent days in bed, unable to get up, and rumours spread that he was a loon, that he'd tried to kill himself before. Better leave him be. But some of them didn't.

"And no one tried to help you?" Robert asks angrily. "They knew your history and no one tried to get you help?"

Aaron shrugs. "Who cares about another thug in there? At least I wasn't causing trouble in a corner, crying like a little girl."

"Hey, I don't want to ever hear you talk that way about yourself again! Do you hear me?" Robert says suddenly angry. "You are more than your crying. It doesn't make you weak! Just think how much easier it would be if I could do the same. I admire that part of you so much."

"You'd say anything," Aaron says bitterly.

"Yeah, I would and you know what?" Robert leans forward, jaw clenched because it's important that Aaron knows. "If you had been the one to shoot me, I still would have got you out, I still would have sat with you here and I still would have loved you. You don't belong in prison. Maybe I do, but not you. I never want to find you in the woods again."

The look Aaron gives him is intense and Robert's heart rate goes up. It looks like forgiveness and understanding. Maybe even companionship because no matter what is happening in Aaron's life at the moment, this past year has sewn them together irrevocably and irreversibly.

"Do you want to come upstairs, watch a bit of Netflix?" Aaron asks slowly.

Something roars in Robert's ears but he pushes it down. "Netflix and chill?" he says before his brain catches on and he cringes.

Luckily, Aaron just huffs in amusement. "Whose Facebook have you been stalking?"

"Radio 1?" Robert says. "Turns out being single is quite dull."

-

If he orders a pizza, it almost feels like their week at Home Farm. They don't talk much, just watches some asinine suggestion. The plot is predictable and no one ends up unhappy and Aaron sleeps through most of it, curled up on one side of his laptop while Robert sits on the other side, legs crossed.

Aaron jerks awake when the titles come on and Robert closes the computer lid.

"Do you want me to stay?" Robert asks softly. "I will if you want me to."

"My mum is next door." Aaron's voice is deep and gruff and Robert wants to kiss him.

"I'll text you tomorrow," Robert whispers and pulls the comforter over Aaron. "Sleep well."

He's been in and out of the pub more times than he probably should, some sneaking in and out when he shouldn't have. He knows which steps creak and which exact way to make the door not bang shut. It feels almost covert.

He's met with a little light from the kitchen when he gets to Vic's and sees his little sister waiting for him with a cuppa in her hand. She looks tired, but she smiles softly at him.

"I thought you wouldn't come back," she says.

It's nearly four am, he sees and sits down beside her. "We were just talking, Vic."

"It's just odd," she says. "Wasn't that long ago when I thought he'd shot you."

"Do you remember that whole thing with Ross' stolen car and Aaron ending up in hospital?" he asks, suddenly generous with his confessions. She nods. "Aaron has these tells and he's been showing them recently. His whole family is falling apart and no one cares to look. That's the least I can do."

"That's what you do when you love someone," Victoria says with a fond smile. "Goodnight, Rob."

"Goodnight," he tells her retreating back. He's got a good feeling.

 

(17-11-15)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm reinacadeea on tumblr as well. Hit me with a message here or there and I would appreciate it. All my love


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